Fans of William Shatner’s gawd-awful acting style and of the classic sci-fi series Outer Limits will be thrilled by Incubus, the entirely bizarre ’66 cult movie directed by Leslie Stevens (the man behind Limits who also wrote this screenplay).
Shatner falls in love with a beautiful woman, only to learn that his soul is in jeopardy because she’s a cohort of the devil. A fantastic thing about this film is seeing Shatner emote in another language; in this case Esperanto, a bizarre dialect (one never used again in a feature film). It sounds like an odd hybrid of a Scandinavian language and Italian—light years away from Klingon, for sure. There are some genuinely spooky moments in this one, released on a beautiful new DVD that includes commentary from Shatner (available at La Boîte Noire).

Out on DVD and VHS this month is Baise-moi, that raunchy film that drew so much attention for being banned in Ontario. The film gained notoriety here when some wingnut actually barged into the projectionist’s booth at the Parisien cinema and stole a reel of the movie! (His getaway vehicle: a bicycle.) Anyway, I wasn’t terribly sold on the alleged political riskiness of this movie but it did do boffo business in France and here, due in large part to the controversy stirred up by its foes. :

--Matthew Hays